Silva retains belt with stunning last-minute submission
In the lead-up to the Ultimate Fighting Championships’ middleweight title fight on Saturday at UFC 117, challenger Chael Sonnen promised a “one-sided beat-down” of the long-time champion Anderson Silva.
He very nearly delivered on that promise. For four and a half rounds of the five round fight, Sonnen was in complete control. He rocked Silva early with a hard punch, and repeatedly took the champion down and pounded him on the ground, stunning announcers and fans around the world.
Silva though performed one of the greatest come-from-behind victories in mixed martial arts history though when he managed to get a hold of Sonnen’s arm and lock in a combination of a triangle choke and armbar halfway through the final round. Sonnen tapped quickly, forcing the referee to stop the fight, though Sonnen later denied he tapped. Replays clearly showed he had.
The loss was heartbreaking for Sonnen, but not surprising given his past fights. Submission defence was always his achilles heel, and it’s caused him to lose in the past to Brazilian jiu-jitsu experts such as Paulo Filho and Demian Maia. What was surprising though was how the challenger was able to so thoroughly dominate Silva, who hasn’t lost in 13 fights and holds records for most consecutive wins in the UFC and most title defences, with 11 and seven respectively.
Sonnen had drawn all the media attention by having talked up a storm of trash talk for months before the fight. He insulted Silva’s fighting style, his Brazilian heritage, his popularity and more, saying that “nobody cares about Anderson Silva” and that he would retire him on Saturday. Silva was wildly unpopular with many UFC fans after his antics at UFC 112, when he danced around the ring and mocked challenger Maia rather than engaging with him en route to a decision victory, in what was a debacle of a main event for the UFC.
Perhaps the most shocking element of the fight was that Sonnen was able to hold him own in the stand-up department with Silva, considered the best striker in MMA. Sonnen was primarily known as a wrestler but was able to give Silva all he could handle on the feet. But it was his wrestling that nearly let him win, as he was able to take Silva down multiple times and not let him up.
The stunning submission victory by Silva, a BJJ black belt will earn him some fans after his UFC 112 performance, and the dramatic end to the fight, as well as the spectacular performance put on by the 4-1 underdog Sonnen has left open the possibility of a rematch.
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